The End of a Chapter and New Beginnings

After 35 days walking through some of the most beautiful nature I’ve had the luck of exploring, my journey ended two days ago with my visit to temple 88.

The moments we hold from our past inform and mold the future set out before us.

I’m very excited to be, in the next few days, making my way to Tokyo in order to meet with the many volunteer organizations currently helping in Tohoku. As it looks now, I may be doing a variety of jobs from sorting food to cleaning streets.

My Promise to You

I haven’t had enough electricity to relate all of the exceedingly wonderful experiences I’ve had the chance to be a part of in the last month. Taking a quick look at Project Go, my hike appears to have been a mildly negative experience. I’m happy to report that there is no statement further from the truth. My journey has been so eye-opening, so amazing, and so thought-provoking, it’s hard to put in words. To explain a little, here’s a quick clip from my scribbled journal;

Day 30: When I first started this grueling hike, I couldn’t imagine why anyone sane would ever walk this pilgrimage more than once. In that first week, I met six people who’ve all followed this path 2, 3 or 6 times each. “They must be crazy or really really bored,” i thought. I slowly settled on the latter conclusion for those men and women were much less crazy than me… “They must be bored,” I found myself thinking. A lot has changed. Recounting the pain, the suffering, the laughs, and the awe inspiring beauty of the periless mountains (hills?); there is nothing like this pilgrimage. Everyone you meet flickers into a fit of exuberation upon your arrival. Every person you help smiles gleefully through their pain-stricken knees. Every single person you greet, returns your greeting with multiplied ferver. The love inherent to this quest for truth intoxicates the senses. I see now. Boredom doesn’t push people into this world, love does.

With that, I have a promise to you… All of you. I promise to provide for you, to the best of my ability, an account of the last 35 days through a series of posts detailing all of those heart warming and heart breaking moments as snipets.﻿﻿﻿﻿

I’ll also provide reviews for the equipment I purchased and the equipment I forgot to purchase. I hope it will shed light on the usefulness of certain equipment for those coming up behind me.

Mid-Journey, The Road Ahead

My original plan included the Nakasendo and Tokaido roads as well as Mt. Fuji. As I’ve mentioned many times, I will be changing course to help volunteer in Tohoku. This doesn’t mean I have abandoned the plan. It simply means I will be hiking those roads in the future after the next phase of my life. All of the intentions I have collected up to now, and any more I receive will continue on the journey with me. And with that, I hope to continually move towards the dreams I’ve laid out before me.

I’ll Prove It

Why will I recount the last few weeks? Why am I continuing this blog after I’ve begun the journey? Well, everyone likes a story! More selfishly, I want to attempt to swallow the massive amount of input I’ve had over the last few weeks as well as the weeks to come. Charting the course and slicing it into bite-sized morsels will (hopefully) provide as much entertainment as it passes the time.

Did I achieve what I wanted? Did I prove it, like I planned? Well, I’ll leave you to decide. I’m midway through the journey, however having come this far, I can see the change beginning to take hold. I can see myself begining to resemble the honest picture I want the world to see.

The journey, ever more important than the destination, will prove the possibility of looking off into the distance, measuring the space between, and acting on the dreams we’ve set out before us.